POETRY OF PRECISION

Richard Mille has long cultivated a unique vision of women’s watchmaking, expressed through exceptional, refined and high-performance timepieces.

Since Richard Mille's earliest ladies' pieces arrived on the scene, the brand has approached femininity not as an afterthought to its masculine collections, but as its own arena of technical ambition and creative daring.

Pieces in the ladies collections continue to explore new realms of imagination and technical mastery, the brand’s pursuit of expressiveness reaffirmed year after year through various innovative interpretations.

For 20 years, this vision remains the throughline of everything the brand builds for women, with its ladies' collections continuing to push into new territory.

Engineering behind the elegance

Contemporary, technical and timeless, watches like the RM 037 Red Gold Snow Set and the RM 07-01 White Gold Snow Set embody the very essence of the Richard Mille ethos.

From everyday life to the most elegant moments, they accompany women with precision, enhancing every silhouette, transcending trends to express a unique identity.

Timepieces in the ladies' collections continue to explore new realms of imagination and technical mastery. Photos: Richard Mille

Both models share a common architecture – the tonneau case with its curved, sculptural lines, the skeletonised titanium calibre visible beneath the dial, an in-house automatic movement finished by hand to the same standard as the brand's most complicated tourbillons.

But it is in their gem-set interpretations that this architecture finds its fullest expression, none more so than the RM 037 in red gold with a snow-set diamond pave and jasper dial.

Its dial cut from jasper and its case wrapped in a snow-set diamond pave, it features a skeletonised movement baseplate with bridges in black PVD treated grade 5 titanium and a large date at 12 o’clock created from two skeletonised, rotating discs.

A function selector allows the wearer to choose between Winding, Neutral or Handsetting, all without the need to pull the crown into different positions.

Two pushers resembling drops of water, one placed between 10 and 11 o’clock (date adjustment), and 4 and 5 o’clock (function selector), allow for easy access to the these functions, with the action chosen appearing in a small window (H-N-W) between 3 and 4 o’clock.

The calibre CRMA1 combines satinated surfaces with chamfered, blasted, brushed and polished areas, including rare black polishing, while the unique crown system allows the integrity of the movement to be fully guaranteed and protected from external influences, since it does not use a classical crown attachment going into the depth of the movement’s heart.

The RM 037 Red Gold Snow Set with Jasper Dial embodies the very essence of the Richard Mille ethos.

The result is that the crown is impossible to dislodge. With a special profile for the teeth of the wheels in the going train, a free sprung balance and variable rotor geometry, the RM 037 Ladies’ is a true Richard Mille in every sense.

While the dense, mottled colour variation of the jasper dial is a fitting counterpart to its diamond pave case, the RM 037 Ladies' is offered in a number of variants.

The case of the RM 037 is available with 18K red gold caseband with highly scratch resistant ceramic bezels in white (ATZ) or black (TZP), or full cases in 18K red or white gold, in a variety of stone setting and dial variants in precious and semi-precious materials such as diamond, onyx and pearl.

Interplay of light

Creating a striking sense of luminosity with the brilliance of white gold and diamonds, the RM 07-01 White Gold Snow Set embraces a cooler, more architectural aesthetic.

Its case flowing effortlessly into a matching gourmette bracelet, this creates a seamless silhouette that extends the signature curves of the tonneau-shaped case onto the wrist.

The heart of the RM 07-01 centres on the novel, in house designed calibre CRMA2, a highly skeletonised automatic movement developed specifically for this timepiece.

With baseplate and bridges machined from grade 5 titanium, the CRMA2 also includes a variable-inertia balance in order to maintain exacting long-term performance, and a rotor in 5N 18K red gold with variable geometry in order to be able to adapt the rotational speed of the rotor according to the owner's activity, thus optimising the winding of the barrel’s high rotation.

Like the RM 037, its patented crown construction makes it impossible to dislodge or break, providing extra protection for the rigours of daily life.

The beauty of the technical mastery within the RM 07-01 can be seen perfectly throughout the skeletonised movement with its balance placed at 6 o’clock, highlighting the care given to the high grade finishing of the movement with its drawn, chamfered and polished surfaces combined with a dramatic, deep black PVD treatment of the plate and bridges.

It possesses a power reserve of about 50 hours, a significant accomplishment for a ladies’ movement.

RM 07-01 White Gold Snow Set, presented on a gourmette bracelet that extends the lines of its white gold case.

The tripartite case of the RM 07-01 is available in a choice of white ATZ ceramic, or warm brown TZP ceramic: both with a red gold caseband, providing beautiful visual contrast as well as an extremely high level of scratch protection – in addition to versions in full 18K red or white gold.

This piece also carries forward one of the brand's more significant departures in ladies' watchmaking: its first precious-metal bracelets, developed specifically for the RM 07-01 and RM 037.

Composed of dozens of individually finished links, each one is micro-blasted, satin-brushed, and polished entirely by hand, then joined using dozens of grade 5 titanium spline screws and finished with a double-fold gold clasp.

Comfort being one of the brand’s top priorities, the development and testing concerning this strap have resulted in a very ergonomic bracelet that is a pleasure to wear.

A combination of aesthetic appeal and perfect integration, the open link strap offers women a very light, airy and flexible type of bracelet with a more casual appearance.

A new dimension

Inspired by the brilliance of a star-filled sky, the RM 07-01 Intergalactic collection reimagines gem-setting through four distinctive interpretations powered by Richard Mille's in-house CRMA2 automatic calibre.

Crafted in Carbon TPT, each model explores the interplay between darkness and light, combining the technical material's velvety black finish with diamonds set in polished 5N red gold prongs. The collection comprises four unique creations – Dark Night, Starry Night, Bright Night and Misty Night – each offering its own interpretation of a celestial landscape.

While Dark Night evokes a constellation through shimmering gold prongs, Starry Night pairs diamonds with a Carbon TPT bracelet, Bright Night features a microblasted 5N red gold caseband, and Misty Night is distinguished by its 5N red gold pillars.

Beyond their visual appeal, the watches showcase Richard Mille's expertise in working with Carbon TPT, a lightweight yet exceptionally strong material.

Unlike gold, Carbon TPT cannot be shaped around gemstones, requiring specialised diamond-bit milling tools to machine precise settings.

Diamond-bit milling tools are used instead to machine each setting, with polished red gold prongs and diamonds inserted individually until the surface reads as a field of stars against a black sky.

The RM 07-01 Starry Night alone carries 181 diamonds of varying shapes and sizes, each hand-placed into gold prongs before being embedded into the carbon.

Sculpted in light

Since June 2019, Richard Mille has housed its own in-house gem-setting workshop – a small, specialised team of four working exclusively on the stone-set pieces that run through the brand's ladies' and men's collections alike.

Bringing this work in-house was a deliberate decision: gem-setting at the level Richard Mille demands cannot be outsourced without losing the micron-level control the brand insists on.

Beyond their visual appeal, the watches showcase Richard Mille's expertise in working with Carbon TPT, a lightweight yet exceptionally strong material.

Traditional pave setting relies on uniform stones, placed in a repeating, calculated grid.

Here, diamonds ranging from just 0.5mm to 1.6mm in diameter are selected and arranged so that no two clusters look alike, producing a pattern that appears random – like the way snowflakes settle where they fall – but is in fact placed with extraordinary precision.

That precision is the technique's central paradox. Each stone must be fitted to a tolerance measured in microns, tight enough that the gems sit flush and secure, while the overall composition must still read as spontaneous.

Achieving both simultaneously depends entirely on the individual gem-setter's eye and experience; no two snow-set watches, even from the same collection, are ever quite identical. It is, in the truest sense, a signature written by hand.

Before a single stone is set, the case itself must be prepared to receive it – and this is where Richard Mille's engineering culture meets its jewellery ambitions.

CNC machines are used to carve the minute cavities that will eventually cradle each diamond, working to margins of error of around a single micron.

Only once this foundation is complete does the gem-setter take over, inserting tiny gold claws by hand to hold each stone permanently in place.

The brand approaches femininity not as an afterthought to its masculine collections, but as its own arena of technical ambition and creative daring.

This two-stage process – machine-precise groundwork followed by entirely manual placement – is emblematic of how Richard Mille approaches gem-setting more broadly. Technology handles what only technology can achieve at this scale; the human hand handles what no machine can replicate: judgment, rhythm, and an eye for beauty that adapts to every individual stone.

Vocabulary of stones

While snow setting anchors the RM 037 and RM 07-01 pieces, it represents only one part of a much broader gem-setting vocabulary within the brand's ladies' collections.

Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, tsavorites, sapphires, opals and hematite have all found their way onto Richard Mille dials and bezels, each paired with a setting style – medium, invisible, or pave – chosen specifically to suit that stone's character.

 

Chosen to complement the shape of the watch, the surface to be covered and the brightness desired, the setting, whether medium, invisible or pave, enhances these precious stones. Catching the light in dancing reflections, the watch they decorate becomes an intimate companion. 

 

Like the random flashes of snowflakes in the sun, the snow setting technique provides such a scintillating effect and a natural brilliance.

In the end, what a snow set Richard Mille offers its wearer is not simply sparkle, but a kind of portrait.

Every stone placed by hand, every cavity carved to a micron's tolerance, every case shaped across days of machine adjustment – all of it converges into a single object that, like the woman who wears it, cannot be replicated.

Twenty years into this commitment, the incredible collection of Ladies' watches stand as proof that Richard Mille has never treated watchmaking for women as anything less than its full ambition.